The error reporting for the code crash when your disk reach the limit while program keeps writing (or possibly just keeps using disk cache) looks very very very VERY confusing. You spend a lot of time to figure out what is wrong. Over your life span you will definitely lose a whole week. Is it possible to make it more friendly?

My experience is that various OSs don't handle the very 'top' of any storage device very well, and if you add in to that a program that doesn't handle the error messages that come from the OS, you have a recipe for disaster. In years gone by whole disks could be corrupted by this, e.g. floppy disks.

I came across a related problem with a colleague who reported that his camera corrupted his memory card trying to write the last picture. The camera reported that there was space for one more JPEG, (presumably calculated on the basis of average or typical sizes) but when that picture was taken the JPEG was too big to store. Memory cards often have FAT or FAT32 systems. Testing the error handling for 'file storage full' cases is much more difficult the larger the device gets.

If you don't know how big a file is to be written, you are even worse off than if you can estimate its size at the outset. On a 32 bit system you are pretty safe if you allow 4Gb per file to be written!

Having adequate disk storage free is a lot easier with a desktop where you can add several very high capacity drives, but on a laptop with smaller capacity anyway it can be worse. Is a week a high estimate? Surely after the first time it happens you go out and buy extra terabyte drives!

No matter how many MBs,GBs and now TBs i have the time comes that the disk is full. I came all the way from floppies to multi-TB drives and all became full at some point

The one week is not to high estimate. Happened more then dozen times to me and loss over lifetime is substantial. Some codes work 24/7 and if error happen before i go to sleep then the night is lost.
Codes are huge, some parts are written by others and if error happen you suspect a billion things, so the fixing is a true PITA. The Good diagnostics is very important.

Damn, lose just 3 seconds a day and you will trash 24 hours in a lifetime. This is why i appreciate so much fast compilation of this compiler versus all others

There comes a time when a cupboard is full, even a town, and to judge from the news reports and political blogs, even a country! Maybe there's an argument that a camera or phone memory card gets full before you realise it, but come on, Dan, run out of space on hard drive on a PC? It's not that you don't get plenty of warning....

Here in the UK I can get 2TB for GBP57 (under USD100) delivered tomorrow and fitted in 10 minutes after it arrives . This is only a sample: you can get bigger capacity if your PC has a UEFI BIOS, and the number of drives you can fit depends on what you chose as a mainboard - one of my PCs will take 10!

On the other hand, if you have any idea how much space you need, you can always call the GetDiskFreeSpaceEx function (instructions on MSDN) before you start writing, or periodically as you continue writing. Then, you can exit gracefully, order another hard drive, and wait for the next day ....

(GetDiskFreeSpaceEx reeports in bytes, making it simpler to use than GetDiskFreeSpace)

Just checked i use GetDiskFreeSpace in more then a dozen places. But what typically happen is that you just ignore warning, they flow on screen like continuous river (how many warning do you have from compiler for example? One my code 501K another 226K. During run they go and go and go ) ! Crash is crash though, you can not ignore it. LOL

There exist also another superconfusing crash diagnostics compiler or EXE gives (i always forget details), will post when it will again happen.

Getting new harddrive here is matter of a half an hour day and night, even faster is to clean some space, but it's good to know that the error above is generated by the OS and can not be changed to be more clear about the crash reason

Thanks for discussion, Eddie. Will think though if to make disk full warning highest priority so that code will check that continuously. Or write the task manager kind of a widget (not related to any specific task but the monitoring the disk space of the whole computer). That handy trick will save me few last hairs.

But may be Paul and other developers can do something to make such message less cryptic ?

.... or gradually catalogue them along with other phantom messages in an FTN95 EMM (Error Messages Encyclopaedia) :O) .... less pain (no code mods, unless easy), lots of gain :O).
We need a uniwue place on the forums where this type of post can be put relating specifically to Error Messages imo !